The tree of life

If as some have suggested that Death was a natural part of life before the fall and somehow different from death after the fall then the cultural mandate of Marriage from Gen 1:28 would have presupposed death. Which would undermine your argument. Yes?

By The Space Bishop on Is there sex in heaven?

No. That oversimplifies the issue.

i) Adam and Eve were naturally mortal. Naturally liable to death. (I don’t find Turretin’s denial exegetically tenable.)

ii) But that doesn’t mean Adam would automatically die of old age at 930 had he never sinned.

iii) The death of Adam is explicitly penal in character: a punishment for transgressing the prohibition.

iv) This isn’t hard to harmonize. Before they fell, Adam and Eve had access to the tree of life. They had the opportunity to become immortal at any time prior to their downfall.

Ironically, they ignored the tree of life, which was permitted, and chose instead to partake the tree of knowledge, which was forbidden. As a result, they lost the opportunity to partake the tree of life. By ignoring what was permitted, and doing what was forbidden, what was hitherto permitted became forbidden. By taking for granted the gift of immortality which was available to them, death became the default penalty for their transgression.

v) This also raises counterfactual conjectures about the fate of their posterity had they honored the prohibition and partaken the tree of life. The text doesn’t furnish sufficient information to wax dogmatic on that score. But if we choose to speculate, then either the consequent immortality of Adam would be transmitted to his posterity, or else his posterity would be naturally susceptible to death, yet also have access to the tree of life.